


the double double double beat

by iphigenias



Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Gen, M/M, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, lbr this fic is simply Alex/catholic guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-07
Updated: 2020-12-07
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:28:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27935469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iphigenias/pseuds/iphigenias
Summary: The thing about growing up religious is that it never fucking leaves you.*Alex, feat. twenty-seven years of repressed Catholic guilt.
Relationships: Alex & Julie Molina, Alex & Luke Patterson & Reggie (Julie and The Phantoms), Alex/Willie (Julie and The Phantoms)
Comments: 43
Kudos: 183





	the double double double beat

**Author's Note:**

> *pats alex's head lovingly* this bad boy can hold so much projected catholic guilt inside
> 
> this fic draws heavily from my own childhood, dialled up to eleven. though not anti-religious or anti-catholic by any means, there are some personal and institutional critiques of faith and the church in particular, so please read with caution if this alarms you. similar cw for homophobia, verbal abuse, etc. during alex's childhood, as well as the death of a parent
> 
> this fic rolls with the headcanon that alex came out when he was 15; his parents, to quote luke, were "never cool again"
> 
> title is from john dryden's _a song for st. cecilia's day, 1687_

The first time Alex goes to church as a ghost, it’s three Sundays since the Orpheum, and he half-expects to be blasted out the door as soon as he steps inside. Contrary to popular belief (see: his obituary, his eighth grade algebra test), Alex isn’t stupid. He’s seen _Buffy_ ; he knows holy ground and the undead don’t mix. They don’t call it fire and brimstone for nothing.

Except when Alex passes through the solid oak doors, braced for a hit, for the scald of holy flame—to be turned to salt, maybe, a modern-day Lot’s wife—and wouldn’t that be just his luck—nothing happens.

He’s a little disappointed.

Alex dips a hand in the holy water and crosses himself—father, son, spirit. The aisle is a yawning chasm before him; Alex crosses it, and takes a pew.

It’s too early for first service, and still dark outside. When the light hits through the stained glass, Alex thinks, this place could be beautiful. Gilt and green carpet; the altar, embroidered silk; Mary, marbled, silent in the transept, forever weeping stone. The fat, pearly red drops of Christ’s blood like dappled sunlight through a canopy. Nail through the palm, stigmata, the word like a _rat-tat-tat_ on Alex’s drums.

In the pew, Alex picks at his cuticles. He looks up at the vaulted ceiling. The confessional is to his right, and he does not turn his head.

The thing about growing up religious is that it never fucking leaves you.

Alex was confirmed when he was twelve, under Antony, patron saint of lost things. (He now finds this particularly apt.) The oil was slick and warm on his forehead, and dripped down into his eyes. Alex fought the urge to wipe it away; fidgeted, a little too much, until his mom pinched his wrist and he stopped.

His hair was still gelled and stiff for school the next day, and Luke laughed and laughed. “Why do you need another name?” Reggie asked after Alex explained. “You already have one.”

Alex said something smart, like, “I never asked,” or maybe, “it’s just what we do,” or probably, “I don’t know, it’s stupid.” He didn’t say what he really wanted to, which was that he’d wanted Saint Cecilia, patroness of musicians, martyred and incorrupt. What he wanted to tell Luke and Reggie was that in her artwork she plays the organ like the keys are her own bones, and her husband was a pagan half his life but still became a saint before her, and when they tried to kill her she wouldn’t burn, and the axe bounced off her neck three times before taking her head with it. What he wanted to say but didn’t was that it was a Tuesday night when his dad set his knife down at the dinner table and said, “you’ll choose Antony,” in his voice reserved for failed report cards and broken china. That his mom had crumpled her napkin against her skirt while NBC played in the next room and Alex threw his steak up into the toilet, after, and brushed his teeth so hard they bled at the gums.

At school, Luke laughed at Alex’s hair, and said, “you look like your dad, bro,” and reached across the bleachers to mess it into Alex’s eyes; the first swing of Cecilia’s axe.

And it’s not like his parents weren’t cool, because they were. Luke’s hated his music, Reggie’s didn’t care, Bobby never told his anything but Alex’s mom and dad were parents enough for the four of them. They let Alex go to music camp over summer and bought him his first drum kit, and recorded every _Sunset Curve_ performance on his dad’s old Betamovie until Alex was fifteen. And it wasn’t like they went to church every Sunday, either. They had Beth when Alex was in junior high, and even before that, Sunday mornings had been mowing mornings for years unless Gran was in town. Alex barely looked at the cross hanging in his living room, except for that night.

Maybe that’s why he told them. Maybe that’s why it hurt so much.

On Christmas, Julie gives the guys brand new merch: _Julie and the Phantoms_ t-shirts, with their names stitched over the pockets. Alex’s is pink, and he cries. Julie hugs him the hardest back; it’s an apology as much as a thank you. Last night she’d come to the studio just after eleven, knocked softly on the door like they might’ve been sleeping (Alex _wishes_ ), and stepped carefully inside.

“We’re going to midnight mass in a bit,” she’d said, eyes cutting to Alex like she was trying not to look his way. “I wondered if you guys might want to come?”

Luke agreed immediately (“whipped,” Alex mouthed to Reggie), and Reggie shrugged. “Why not? I’m already dead, not like He’ll kill me for converting.” (“Your mom would,” Alex deadpanned, and Reggie threw a drum stick at him.)

“Alex?” Julie finally asked, as he deliberately fidgeted with his cap. “You wanna just hang here? We’ll be back before one, the church’s down the block and the priest always yawns through service anyway.”

It was an out; Alex took it readily, and tried not to think about why. “Yeah,” he’d said, a little more forcefully than intended. He’d almost worried a hole through the brim. “I’ll pass. Have fun, though?” And he hated how it was a question; hated even more the softening of Julie’s face, the warmth that cascaded through him as she squeezed his shoulder.

The three of them left together. Alex thought about trying to find Willie, but it was late, and Alex didn’t want to worry him. He thought, briefly, absurdly, of going to visit his parents; snuffed that candle out at the quick, and breathed hard, non-breaths from lungs that didn’t work anymore, into the silence of the studio.

He’d ended up down at the beach. Ghosts didn’t make footprints, which was nice, because there was no trail for anyone to follow. Alex waded into the surf; wondered if ghosts could drown; thought about screaming into the whitewash but it felt wrong, somehow, to do it without Willie. The watch on his wrist buzzed the hour, and Alex closed his eyes.

“Merry fucking Christmas,” he’d said, and walked the long way back to Julie’s house.

There are good days, and there are bad days.

On good days, Alex finds Willie, and they spend it trying not to wonder about Caleb’s sudden disappearance, what it means for Willie’s soul. Alex finds kneepads and a helmet in Julie’s garage and skates precariously alongside Willie on Ray’s old quads, falls (quite deliberately) into Willie’s arms, who catches him. They get ice-cream from this place Willie knows that Alex can actually _taste_ —he tries rum and raisin and rainbow and coffee and hazelnut and eats pistachio from Willie’s spoon, and when Alex kisses him for the first time it is tacky and sweet and honeycombed and he gets ice-cream in Willie’s hair from holding it. Willie says, “about time, hotdog,” and Alex shoves him into the grass and kisses him again, just because he can, because no-one can see them and the sun is at his back and Willie is even more blinding and Alex wants to hold this moment between his hands forever, but it keeps slipping through like sand.

On good days, Willie takes Alex to Justin Bieber’s empty pool and Dodger Stadium and Venice Beach and kisses him against the sun-bathed walls of Olvera Street. On good days, Alex’s hands fly across the skins like he’s never done anything else in his life, and Reggie fly-tackles him into the couch like they’re still fourteen and Luke rolls his eyes at some joke that he cracks and his hands don’t shake when Julie holds them, and he hasn’t bitten his nails in over a week.

On good days, Alex can stare at the rosary strung around Julie’s bedpost, and not want to set it on fire.

On bad days—

(On bad days Alex prays.)

The second time Alex goes to church as a ghost, it’s for Saturday night mass. The church is barely half full and Alex hovers in the final pew, clutching the denim at his knees. They’ve changed the words—when did they change the words?—but the songs are all the same, have always been the same, will _always_ be the same and maybe that’s what terrifies him. The organ presses into his chest like a bowling ball, fills up his insides like a balloon with red, and holy, and red; worms its way into his brain and stays there, a second pulse, mirrored alongside his own long gone.

After, when the congregation has filed out, when the altar boys have snuffed out the candles and the father’s hung up his stole, Alex slips through the door to the confessional and sits inside the darkness. Forgive me father for I have sinned—it has been twenty-seven years since my last confession—

Alex swallows down the words and leaves.

The hymn follows him home.

Alex has lived nine years more than Jesus did.

Well.

‘Lived’.

It’s early spring in Los Angeles when Alex unzips his fanny pack to let Willie hunt for a Band-Aid and his boyfriend pulls out his rosary instead.

“It’s pink,” Willie says.

“I know,” Alex replies, stupidly. “My sister gave it to me.”

Willie nods, looking at the beads in his hand. He rolls one between his thumb and forefinger. “When you asked me all that stuff about moving on,” he says slowly, “was it because of this?”

Alex takes the rosary, folds it into the palm of his hand. If he clenches his fist the plastic crucifix would probably break. “I don’t know,” he answers, honestly. “Maybe. I feel like I don’t know anything anymore.”

Willie _hmms_ , and closes his hand over Alex’s, cross cradled between. “Then it’s a good thing I know lots of things,” he grins, and Alex says, “I love you.”

Willie has the nerve to look surprised—like Alex could feel any different, could find any other name for the spaces Willie takes up between his ribs where shame used to curdle. Then he smiles, and it’s everything: Moses and the Red Sea. “That I _didn’t_ know,” Willie replies, and Alex kisses him.

They end up in the grass, their first kiss all over again, and Willie lifts his head to ask, “so should I leave room for Jesus?” and Alex shoves at him, then kisses him again. The rosary lies forgotten by Willie’s board beside them but Alex picks it up when they leave, the plastic sticky with dew. He carries it to the studio, to the box in the loft with everything they left behind, and closes the lid.

“I didn’t know you said grace,” Alex says to Julie one night after dinner when they’re washing up at the sink. Reggie and Luke are huddled over a babka recipe on Ray’s iPad, trying to figure out how to screenshot. Alex is happy to leave them to it.

Julie shrugs and wipes a soap sud from her shirt. “Sometimes we do. Sometimes we forget. It’s not really a big deal.” Alex nods, scrubbing at a piece of carbonara. “It was my mom’s thing, really. I think we still do it because we don’t know how else to say thank you.”

Alex passes the carbonara-free plate to Julie to dry. “To God?”

“And to Mom.” Julie stacks the plate on the pile and takes the offered fork. “You can join us, if you want.” She opens the drawer and dumps the fork inside. “One day.”

Alex takes his time with Ray’s wine glass, careful not to snap the stem. “I don’t think so,” he finally says, handing it to Julie, who dries it just as gently. “But thank you.” She grins and flicks a sud at him and Alex sends one right back. 

“Master chef at work here, hello,” Reggie says over his shoulder. Alex looks at Julie, who looks at the sink. Luke scratches his nose, oblivious.

(Never let it be said Catholics can’t unleash hell.)

Reggie does not get to make his babka.

Alex is only a little sorry.

The third time Alex goes to church as a ghost, Luke comes with him.

(“Dude this is so creepy, why is dead Jesus everywhere?”

“You guys don’t literally drink blood right? Like it’s important for me to know that you guys don’t drink actual human blood Alex PLEASE ANSWER ME RIGHT NOW.”

“These lyrics are terrible. What the hell is a _psalm_?”)

It helps, having perspective.

Alex looks up his family on Julie’s computer when the guys are in the studio. He painstakingly types into Google and hits search.

His dad is dead. 2008, car crash. He clicks the next result. His mom lives somewhere in—Oregon, now? She’s in her congregation’s newsletter. Alex doesn’t read it. He types in his sister’s name. _Bethany Goldberg_ , it tells him. That’s not a Catholic name.

Alex smiles.

When Saint Antony was just a man, he prayed so hard for his stolen psalm-book to be returned to him that it was. Alex has prayed for many things, many of which never came true. Other things, that he never prayed for, did.

On Saint Valentine’s Day Willie gives Alex a dozen roses and more than a dozen kisses. The _Phantoms_ play at the school dance that night and Willie watches from stage-left, his eyes not leaving Alex for even a moment, who feels their warmth all over. When their set finishes Willie kisses him again, and again, and Alex has long lost count but he knows one thing for sure: Cecilia never had someone who loved her like this.

And maybe that’s the point.

Lent passes them by.

Alex gives up his guilt, gladly.

**Author's Note:**

> the buffy alex has seen is the 1992 movie because you can't tell me that gay little 14 y.o. didn't sneak into the cinema to watch it
> 
> my twitter is @svnsvstvrk! pls don't be deterred by the fact it's private i accept all follow reqs <3


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